The Cure Trilogy: Sweet Sacrifice
by KShade
Summary: Thorn is 'cured' from being a fledgling by a group of insane scientists. She also begings to hear a voice, and swears she's being controlled by something outside her body. When it comes time for recently Marked Shell and red fledgling Cheyenne to undergo the same torturous process, can they escape? Will the unlikely trio band together, or will they pay the ultimate price? All OC's.
1. Prologue: Out of Time

**Hi, so, as promised, **_**Sweet Sacrifice**_**. As promised, Multi POV. It's going to be like the real HoN novels in that Shell is in first person, any other POVs are in third person.**

_**Epilogue: Out of time**_

_I can't run much longer_, Shae thought, _I need to stop._ But her legs kept right on going, despite the fact that it hurt her to run. She had to get to a House of Night or she would die. It was that simple. The Tracker had said she was parked around the block, so she really didn't have much further to go, but Shae was trying not to reject the change on her way there. Coughing and sneezing, she kept going, despite the fact that her lungs felt worse than they did the time she caught bronchitis. Not to mention how demoralizing it was knowing that her dad had sold her out.

_Happy thoughts, Thorn,_ she called herself by her alias, hoping that would calm her down. A black vehicle rocketed out of the school parking lot, fishtailing dangerously until it was beside Shae, and the tracker rolled down the window. "Get in!" she ordered briskly, and Shae ripped the door open, hurling herself into the vehicle and locking it. Every wasted second was one where _they_ could get to her.

She looked at her driver, a pale woman with spiky black hair, who dug her chipping scarlet nails into the leather of the wheel. Her tattoos were like snakes that coiled and slithered along her face. "If I could get the name of my savior?" Shae tried.

"Don't glorify me unless we succeed," she snapped abruptly, looking in the mirror at the Darylite-Ops people who had been following me, "And my name is Alena Lehane," she added. Abruptly, she swerved into an alley and cut through it, plowing over one of the new recycling bins. Shards of brittle blue plastic flew around us as Alena continued, ignoring them entirely.

One of the Darylite-Ops was hit by a shard, which lodged in the bullet proof vest. All the Darylite-Ops guys looked the same, menacingly large muscles, wearing all black, sunglasses, no less that 6'6. They were scary as hell, and virtually impossible to identify one from the other. Alena swerved again, merging onto a high way, and merging in, leapfrogging her way in front of the cars. She was going at about double the given speed, deftly weaving her way through traffic.

The keening of a siren pierced the silence in the car, and she looked out the window, muttering "daddy's home," in a voice that sounded shot through with fear. I peered in the rear view mirror, seeing the police officer had a Darylite-Ops guy in his passenger seat, and was also weaving in traffic behind us, steadily gaining on us as cars let him through.

"Fuck," Shae whispered, meeting the eyes of the Darylite guy through the window. His eyes were just like hers: pale blue with a hint of darker blue near the pupils. That was all she could see through his command mask, which had the black slashes on it, signifying the company's undercover service. Her father was a traitor. The thought made her blood boil. She clutched at the pictures she carried in her purse, a compact-like thing that had a picture of her mother and father, before they got a divorce. Her nails dug deep into the cheap leather frame as her eyes bore into their mirrored counterparts in the mirror side.

The first thing she noticed was that her eyes were more vivid- the light blue looking more intense, the darker blue the shade of the moon on her forehead. Her normally light brown hair looked the same, but felt a touch smoother. The most jarring difference though was how pale she was. Shae couldn't decide whether it was because of the fear of being caught or just a natural part of being a fledgling. She found her phone and emailed her sister, she would be in fifth form, by now. "I'm coming, D," she typed.

Alena screamed. The car had begun to careen towards a divider. At top speed, it had hit a puddle and hydroplaned. The car was skittering towards a concrete wall, at ridiculous speeds. Alena had her eyes closed and her head tucked between her legs. Shae mimicked the position, bracing for impact and sobbing as she pleaded with Nyx, "Nyx please, if you let me live, I'll go to every ritual, I'll even forgive dad for this, please just let me live."

There was an ear-piercing thud, a burst of pain, and then nothing at all.

_Pain. _That's all she felt when sensation returned to her body, pain and an icy chill. She tried to look around, to find that she couldn't see, there was something obscuring her eyes. She tried to move her hands, to find her wrists and ankles were strapped in. She fought to get free, twisting and writhing until her left wrist, bleeding from friction burns, slipped free. She used it to push up whatever was covering her eyes, which hit the floor with a clang that startled her.

_Where am I?_ She thought as she looked around the room. The entire space was sterile white, and there was a small metal table beside her, the type that had wheels and slid around. On that, there was a stainless steel cylinder, a needle, an information packet and what appeared to be rubbing alcohol. She tried to free her other wrist when someone entered the room. His dark brown hair was curly and swept back into a hair net, and his eyes were light brown, like milk chocolate, but cold as ice. He looked to be five foot five or something similar, not very tall. She couldn't tell, but he looked like a doctor, smirking behind his mask-thing, which covered his mouth, and playing with the pocket of his lab coat.

As he approached her, she could make out the name tag that he wore, which read Dr. _Daryl Mackenzie_. As in, _The _Daryl Mackenzie, discover-er of Darylite. The symbol on the side of his name tag supported the idea, being a huge D, with three slashes through the curved part of the D, the same three slashes that were on the Darylite Ops guys (which, she hated to say, included her father) that chased her down.

Daryl noticed her wrist was free and the apparatus on her head was missing, so he whipped out his phone, pressed three and said, "all good for protocol six. I need Two and Forty-five, stat," then turned his attention to Shae.

"I am Dr. Mackenzie, and I presume you understand-" and that was as far as she let him go

"That you kidnapped me, probably killed Alena and caused a major car accident so you could shove some unholy prescription cocktail into me to pretty much shit on everything my goddess did," Shae finished, quite proud of the fact that she hadn't stammered at all.

"Miss Lehane got off with a broken wrist and a severe concussion. We did not have the authority to do anything to her, the damned demon almost got away with kidnapping," Daryl muttered the last part, "you, on the other hand, had a severe ankle fracture that I've tended to, _you're welcome_," he drawled out the end, "and you've been lied to. There is no goddess you speak of; Miss Lehane deceived you on that. The change to a vampyre is a biological warfare attempt by a group of Satanists," he appeared smug, too smug as his female co-worker strolled in with my father. Shae almost would have believed him, had she not heard Nyx when she was marked.

Her dad's blue eyes met hers, peering warily at her, as though ashamed through his slightly shaggy brown hair, a shade darker than Shae's. He dwarfed Daryl by about a foot, maybe even more, and he was built like an athlete. No wonder he was head of the Darylite-Ops team. He was still wearing his Ops gear, all black with his command mask flipped up so his face was visible.

The woman with him was only a couple inches shorter than he was and lithe. Her hair was long and colourless, so blonde it was almost white. She also wore a surgeon's mask, and a lap coat, with black slacks under it, and the kind of heels that clicked incessantly. Her name tag read Dr. Delilah Wintree. The name sounded familiar, but Shae couldn't place it. Her steel grey eyes were what clued her in, she was the liar.

The liar was her given title, after the creeper had gotten old. She'd been having an affair with Shae's father since Shae was seven, and, if you looked, she was always in the background somewhere. Even on family vacations, and random little nights out at the movies, she was in the background. But she always had an excuse, hence being called the liar.

Delilah smirked, her lips curling up devilishly behind her mask. Shae couldn't take it any more. "Let me go! You guys don't have the right to do this to me!" Shae began to try to untie her other hand, not wanting to have to try to slide it out. The other wrist still stung from that,

"Actually, they do," Shae's dad said, sheepishly, "Delilah explained the science to me, and I didn't want to lose my only daughter-" he kept talking, but she tuned out, blah blah blah, wife never understood me, blah blah blah, Delaney wasn't considered his daughter anymore, la di la di la di bloody la.

"I don't care what De-liar told you," Shae interrupted, "it's my life and you guys can't-" she began

"Actually, you're sixteen, you father signed for you, as legal guardian," Daryl explained, "Dr. Wintree, if you would be so kind as to clean the injection site," he instructed. Delilah did as she was told, digging her glove-covered nails into Shae's arm as she wiped the top of the struggling girl's arm with rubbing alcohol.

"Mr. Wilder, if you could hold her still," Daryl ordered Shae's dad, who obediently held her still. She tried to fight, but with one wrist and both ankles bound, Shae wasn't going anywhere. She couldn't even twitch as her dad betrayed her, immobilizing her.

"Injection site prepared," Delilah reported, stepping back looking self-satisfied. Daryl opened the cylinder, a dramatic burst of mist flowing out the top and stuck the needle into something in the centre of it, before re-sealing it. Shae saw something swirly and black in the tube of the needle, and tried to move again.

"And it is thusly, Subject One is born!" crowed Daryl, thrusting the needle into her arm abruptly and pressing the plunger.

Shae screamed in agony as the substance _burned_. It was like the acid they'd studied in science, she was sure it was devouring her flesh. Then, her vision warped, turning blue and red and purple, bulging and swelling in odd ways. A voice spoke in her ear, whispering evil things about power and it being the 'law of the land'. Then, she saw, heard, felt nothing…

When she came to, there was a black splotch on her arm, and no tattoo on her forehead. She took one look in the mirror, her eyes gazing into their mirrored counterparts, and she was disgusted. Since then, she's worn contacts, to hide from those eyes like her father's. She's been prescribed pills that made her into a robot to deal with the voice, though it never went away.

_Shae, _she thought bitterly_, died with my mark. I'm Thorn no__w, and he's nothing to me. _

**So, that was longer and scarier than originally intended. Am I happy about that? Definitely. Thanks for reading, drop me a review or a PM. KShade signing out.**


	2. The Beginning

**So, this rewrite is taking more effort than I thought, cause I'm pedantic about characters and whatnot. I want everyone to be… well, I want them to be themselves. Shell is bilingual, there will be translations in brackets after she speaks. Dedicated to RandomReader17 because she's too sweet, and she's been with me from the start.**

_Nicole/Rochelle_

"Excusez- moi, Madame, mais est-ce que je peux aller boire de l'eau," (Excuse me, but can I go get a drink) I asked, coughing loudly and disrupting the class. The teacher waved her hand dismissively, not really caring whether I stayed or not, so long as I stopped disrupting class. I got up and collected my books, making it obvious that I was leaving. Today was my sixteenth birthday and I did _not_ want to have to deal with my cold, or the annoyingly hard-to-conjugate French verbs.

I went to my locker, shoving all the stuff I needed into my backpack as fast as I could. I wanted to go before—

"What the hell are you doing here?" I heard someone demand. So much for escaping. _And a happy birthday to you, _I remarked dryly to myself.

"I could ask you the same question," I answered, continuing to shove my stuff into my bag. I was _not_ ready to deal with Beth's crap today. Frankly, I never was, but I was hoping, since it was my birthday I could avoid her, just for twenty-four hours. I guess I'm not that lucky.

"Senior citizens first," she commented, pointing out the fact that I was _holy crap older by almost seven months_. This was a classic move by Beth, and then, if I refused again, she'd start her tirade on how I'm an awful friend and I never tell her anything. If I'm really lucky, her incredibly whipped boyfriend will stand there and nod like a cheap bobble head. Which is sanctimonious of me, because that's what I usually do.

I rolled my eyes, "currently, I'm circulating blood through my veins and inhaling oxygen, maybe later I'll even try a little brain-activity," I responded dryly. I turned and grabbed my jacket and threw it on, locking my locker and turning to leave. I wished I hadn't worn my new heels, because then I would be able to make a break for it.

"Real funny," she snapped, "I should have known you weren't going to tell me. Like you ever tell me anything. I swear, I learn more through the mom rumor-vine than you ever tell me. And did you actually-" I tuned out after that much, letting her rant without actually listening at all. I bumped into a girl in the hall, who normally, I might have overlooked. She had long, shiny black hair, cut jaggedly. There was eye liner under her eyes that looked almost tear like, but swirlier. Her vivid green eyes bore into mine as her blood red lips set in a hard line.

"Nicole Mackenzie," she greeted me, somehow knowing my name. "Today, you'll have to make a choice. And if you chose the cure, I want you to know my name," she said mysteriously, slipping a folded piece of that cool paper artists use into my bag. "and I am fine again," she whispered quickly.

"Is this another thing you never told me about?" Beth interrupted and the girl who'd stopped me bristled, like when a cat gets rained on, how they flinch and then stiffen. The girl squinted at Beth, as though working on a difficult problem, "Wilson?" she asked me, using Beth's last name. "The choice will be easier then I had thought," she said, her voice turning haughty as she left.

Beth muttered, "goth freak," under her breath, and then proceeded to share why she had a grudge against this particular person. _Who does she think she _is, _going by Thorn, honestly, what kind of loser does that? Blah blah freaking blah. _I tuned out after that. The school bell rang, and students poured into the halls, bursting out of the last class of the day. In the chaos, I managed to lose Beth and get out of the school. Rather than catching the school bus, I decided to walk five blocks to the city bus stop.

The May weather was beautiful, if not a little over cast. The street that I walked down was shaded by tall trees, whose leaves were a bright green. Feeling like I was ten years younger, I twirled around. Then, I sat down on a little bench and pulled out the little slice of pie I'd bought during lunch. "Happy Birthday, Nicole," I whispered, because this small moment of solitude was my present to myself. The sweet yet tart flavour of the lemon meringue pie caressed my taste buds as I ate it. I threw the little box the slice was in out and continued my walk, singing to myself.

"She's one of my kind," commented a voice from nearby. I whirled around, looking for the voice, when she stepped slightly out of the shadows, "Amy Lee, I mean. The High Council is quite proud that she's one of us," the vampyre explained. When she left the shadows, I got a better look at her. She had shirt and spiky black hair, and tattoos that looked like serpents. She was a good foot taller than my five foot five.

"Or rather, one of _our_ kind," she amended, and I knew in that moment what she was going to say before she said it. "Nicole Mackenzie! Night has chosen thee; thy death will be thy birth. Night calls to thee; hearken to Her sweet voice. Your destiny awaits you at the House of Night!" she pointed a finger at my forehead and it exploded in pain, like a wasp sting. My vision was swimming with tears when she guided me to her car.

In utter shock, I sat down. My forehead had stopped stinging. _Is this actually happening? _I asked myself, _do I want it to be? _For a frightening moment, all the hard facts assailed me_, I was leaving my family. I was leaving my friends. I could potentially die any day in the next four years or so. Assuming I don't die, I have to learn an entirely different way of life. _I began to hyperventilate, trying not to faint. The tracker sat me down in her car and put her hand on my shoulder, "Nicole!" she snapped, "you need to breathe,"

She got in the driver's side and smiled at me, seeing the fear written all over my face, "many good things as well can come from becoming a fledgling, Miss Mackenzie." so as she drove me to the house I'd lived at all my life, I thought about what I had to lose and what I had to gain.

**So, I kept Shell essentially the same, but I changed Thorn a little… like there's a reason she knows that… KShade out.**


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